There have been many suggestions, including my U.S. Pat. No. Re. 29,936 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,614, for forming swimming pool walls of molded resin panels, preferably of a structural foam material. Structural foam panels are lightweight, do not rust, can be molded in modular units, are easy to assemble, and have other advantages over steel walls for swimming pools; but they lack the strength of steel, and they deform from their intended shape in a pool wall. If they are thickened and braced enough to have the strength of steel, they become too costly. So, in spite of many attempts with different configurations of molded resin pool wall panels, they have not yet succeeded in the marketplace.
This invention involves recognition of the problem of making satisfactorily strong swimming pool walls with molded resin panels and proposes a way of reinforcing the panels with steel or other strong material to achieve the benefits and economies of structural foam while insuring adequate strength. The invention considers molding and manufacturing requirements, assembly cost, wall construction, and the strength of the completed pool wall and achieves a configuration and arrangement that meets all the requirements and is economically competitive.